


nothing to hide

by seek_its_opposite



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s07e12 X-Cops, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 03:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16109402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seek_its_opposite/pseuds/seek_its_opposite
Summary: This, for once, isn’t their usual dialogue.





	nothing to hide

They look wholesome and fatal at once, like All-American Rockwell subjects stuck in a crime scene photo by Weegee. In all black, they almost seem to be absorbing the dawn. Hands in their pockets, the agents speak to each other in hushed voices, leaning on the cop car, sliding closer together as the ambulance howls down the block. If you were to ask whether they were numb to the world or pin-prick sensitive to it, no one would be able to tell you which.

The sergeant interrupts the scene with the bracing efficiency of a morning coffee.

“Agents,” she nods, extending her hand. “We’ll take it from here.” Then, mid-handshake, almost as an afterthought: “And I’d ask the FBI not to show up unannounced in Willow Park again.”

The redhead raises an eyebrow. The camera pushes in. “Sorry?”

“Agent Scully, the last thing this neighborhood needs is more outsiders who think they know how to fix it. Let me handle my territory and you handle yours.”

“Sergeant,” the man offers gently. “I think you have us all wrong.” He has all the ease of a hostage negotiator but none of the slickness. Despite how much he looks the part of a detective, he cuts an almost iconoclastic figure when he speaks.

“Your irresponsible theories nearly got my officer killed, Agent Mulder.” The sergeant gestures at the crack house, the door splintered on the floor. “To say nothing of how my department looks on camera for taking you seriously.”

“But you did take him seriously.” Agent Scully’s voice sharpens to a stiletto point. Her partner absorbs chaos; she refracts it. “You listened to him for a reason, and now you’re ashamed of how it looks? The way I see it,” she protests, still getting louder, “we saved lives out here. If we hadn’t shown up when we did, Deputy Wetzel would be dead, and that’s thanks to Agent Mulder’s insights. I would argue that reflects pretty well on all of us.”

She’s flushed now, running on adrenaline. Agent Mulder puts a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Hey,” he soothes, leaning down to her ear. “Don’t worry about it.” It’s as likely that he’s tried this tack before as it is that she won’t listen.

Sure enough, Agent Scully only seems more charged by his touch. “No,” she insists, talking both to her partner and, possibly, the universe.  _No_ , and all that it implies. A full stop and a beginning.

“ _Irresponsible_ —” she stresses, pointing to the rookies on the camera crew. “These men are here to show people what it’s really like on duty and they hide in a closet.  _That’s_  irresponsible. You want to expose the truth? Do your damn jobs and leave the man I love out of this.”

The sergeant opens her mouth and closes it again. The flurry around them dims. Mulder coughs.

“Scully,” he says, raw. Like a secret.

And now this is all there is—the Red Sea has parted. The only ones left on dry land are Agent Mulder, smiling in spite of himself, and Agent Scully, struck silent. This, for once, isn’t their usual dialogue.

A couple of cops whistle. One of the guys ribs the only cameraman still doing his job.

“Did you get that?” he elbows.

Scully hears. She wheels in the camera’s direction and advances toward the lens.

“Let me make one thing clear,” she vows, somehow suddenly taller. Her voice is fire. Her voice is the badge she does not reach for. “I don’t fucking care if you got it.”

She reaches for her partner’s hand. “Let’s go, Mulder.”

Agent Mulder smiles again, links his fingers into hers. He turns his nose to Scully’s ear as they retreat into the smog and whispers, low and conspiratorial. No one else on the street will report hearing what he says.

Something in the geometry between them clicks like the closing of a door.


End file.
